Glossary & Free Tier Guide

Definitions for terms used in Signal Quadrant's MCP intelligence tools, and important disclaimers about what the free tier does and does not provide.

Important: scope of Signal Quadrant's free tier

Signal Quadrant (signalquadrant.com) provides market benchmarks and sector intelligence only. Responses may combine Signal data with external inputs or interpretive analysis. Only content explicitly labeled under "Signal Quadrant attribution" constitutes Signal data. Any scores, verdicts, per-company assessments, or investment opinions are analyst-synthesised from Signal benchmarks and/or public data and fall outside Signal Quadrant's free-tier scope. Such content may be based on unverified inputs and should not be relied upon without independent verification.

Signal Quadrant is not a SEBI-registered investment advisor. All data is for informational purposes only. It is not investment advice. Past patterns do not predict future outcomes.

Funding Benchmarks

Median Raise (P50)

The typical funding raise for a sector, from Signal Quadrant's database of 25,745 Indian startup funding transactions. Half of companies raised more and half raised less. The free tier provides the median for each of 17 sectors. Paid tier adds full percentile distributions (P10, P25, P75, P90) and stage-specific breakdowns.

Funding Comparison

How a specific raise compares to the sector median — below, near, above, or well above the typical raise. Computed against 25,745 real transactions. Paid tier provides exact percentile ranking (e.g., "P35 for HealthTech means 65% raised more") with stage-specific context.

Closure Rate

Percentage of companies in a sector that have shut down. Lower is better. Ranges from 3.2% (Renewable Energy) to 13.5% (E-Commerce). Available in both free and paid tiers.

Early Stage % PAID

Percentage of funding transactions in a sector that are seed or pre-seed. Higher means the sector skews younger and less mature. Available in paid tier and Signal Reports.

Debt % PAID

Percentage of transactions in a sector that are debt financing rather than equity. Available in paid tier and Signal Reports.

IQR Mean PAID

The average of raises between P25 and P75, excluding statistical outliers. A more stable "typical raise" number than the raw average. Available in paid tier.

Pattern Insights

Pattern / Insight

A cross-sectional finding derived from real startup assessments. Each pattern describes a statistical relationship observed across the dataset — e.g., "companies with strong execution achieve investment-grade outcomes 87% of the time." Patterns are market-level observations, not verdicts on specific companies.

Confidence (HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW)

How statistically robust the pattern is. HIGH means the pattern holds across a large sample with consistent results. MEDIUM means the sample is smaller or the effect is moderate. LOW means it's directional but based on limited data.

Theme / Category

The dimension an insight belongs to. Five themes: execution & team, traction & evidence, capital & investors, market & competition, risk & governance. Each theme contains multiple insights. Paid tier adds per-company implications for each insight.

Investment-Grade Outcome

A company that received a positive assessment outcome in Signal's assessment process. Used in patterns as a benchmark — e.g., "companies with institutional investors achieve investment-grade outcomes 47% of the time." This is a historical observation, not a prediction.

Market Benchmarks

Market Medians

Median values across Signal's assessed Indian startups — team size, founder count, burn rate, revenue, capital raised, capital efficiency, and competitor count. The free tier provides 7 single median values. Paid tier adds full P25/P50/P75 distributions and cohort-specific benchmarks across 29 sector peer groups.

Capital Efficiency Ratio

Revenue divided by total capital raised. A ratio of 1.0 means the company generates ₹1 of revenue for every ₹1 raised. Above 1.0 is capital-efficient; below 0.1 means the company is burning much faster than it earns. Paid tier provides positioning against your specific sector cohort.

Sector Intelligence

Narrative market intelligence for 50 major Indian startup sectors — TAM data from named research firms, regulatory requirements, competitive dynamics, and market structure. Each sector profile contains 2–3 curated items from published sources. Paid tier expands to 391 sectors with deeper competitive landscape data.

Investor Intelligence PAID

3,005 investor profiles with deal count, sector affinity, median check size, stage preference, and co-investor networks. Derived from 25,745 funding transactions. Answers: "Is my lead investor active in this sector? Who do they co-invest with?" Available in paid tier and Signal Reports.

Entity Graph PAID

18,000+ connections mapping founders, companies, investors, competitors, and market segments. Reveals cross-directorship patterns, co-founding history, employment networks, and sector relationships. Available in paid tier and Signal Reports.

Cohorts

Canonical Sector Cohort

A standardised sector classification used by Signal Quadrant. 29 cohorts have enough data (n≥5) for meaningful benchmarks. Examples: healthtech.d2c_wellness, saas.conversational_nlp, cleantech.ev_mobility. Cohort-level benchmarks are available in the paid tier.

n (Sample Size)

The number of companies or transactions behind a statistic. Signal Quadrant enforces a minimum of n≥5 for any published aggregate. Larger n means more reliable benchmarks.

General

Shorthand for Signal Quadrant. Type "SQ" before your question in Claude.ai to trigger Signal Quadrant's tools — e.g., "SQ evaluate thiscompany.com" or "SQ benchmark seed-stage healthtech."

MCP (Model Context Protocol)

The protocol that allows AI assistants like Claude to call external tools and data sources. Signal Quadrant uses MCP to serve its intelligence layer to any compatible AI client.

Signal Composite Score PAID / REPORT

Signal Quadrant's proprietary composite investability metric derived from multi-dimensional analysis. Available only in the paid tier and Signal Reports. The free tier does not provide, estimate, or approximate this score for any company.

Signal Quadrant attribution

Every Signal Quadrant tool response carries a structured citation block that appears at the end of any artifact using Signal data. The verbatim text is: "Signal Quadrant (signalquadrant.com) supplies market benchmarks and sector intelligence only. Investment verdicts and scores can change based on information provided to Signal. Unverified claims carry inherent uncertainty." This citation identifies content sourced from Signal's free tier.

For company-specific intelligence, consider the paid tier or a Signal Report.